One for sorrow
by Shadedrow
Summary: What if azar javed were not teh only renagade mage interested in witcher secrets?
1. Chapter 1

One for sorrow.

His head throbbed, and he could feel the blood trickling down from the split in his scalp, staining his dark blond hair. He could hear water dripping and seeping from somewhere above, the only flickers of light came from the guttering torches well down the corridor, and the air itself smelled fetid, the stench of blood and death rising over the reek of shit and mold and rot. Wherever they had been thrown, it was well underground. From the cell across from his, he could hear unsteady, shallow breathing, abruptly broken as the other inmate shoved himself into a more upright position with a pained gasp. "You shouldn't aggravate those broken ribs. They're affecting your breathing enough without you puncturing a lung." He remarked, voice too quiet to carry to any with less sensitive ears.

"Yeah, well, you shouldn't have come looking for me, Phinn." The paler blond coughed, and spat blood.

"Fiyero… we need to look after each other. Sure as shit no one else will care, and there are few enough of us as is." He leaned on the barred door to watch his friend, eyes reflecting green in the shreds of torchlight.

"If you hadn't noticed, looking after each other ended with both of us caged. If you hadn't cared that I didn't show up at our usual rendezvous at the end of hunting season, you could be getting drunk in the presumed safety of our beloved Kaer Morhen, right now. You could have gone home."

"Yes, yes, and I'd be listening to Vesemir reminisce about the good days and Lambert bitch about anything that comes to mind. Wouldn't be the same without you, jackass. Besides, if I was there, who would remind you to be careful of the ribs those bastards kicked in?"

"Delphinium…. "Fiyero sighed. "We aren't the first witchers they've caught. I know some of the names carved into the wall. This does not bode well for our cha…" A door opened with a metallic clang at the far end of the corridor, and an additional torch lit the area, moving closer. Two sets of vertical pupils narrowed, and voices lowered even further. "I don't suppose you still have that knife you kept in your boot?"

"They didn't even leave me the boots, Fye. No belt, either. Tunic, trousers, medallion. You have anything?"

"Other than boot shaped bruises and these damned cracked ribs? No, not really." Fiyero glanced worriedly at the approaching light, then back at the other witcher. "While you were out, when they were locking us up, they referred to us as specimens. This does not provide me with warm fuzzy feelings about our future, Phinn."

"We're witchers, Fye, we're not supposed to have warm fuzzy feelings, no matter what I was saying to convince you into my bed last winter. We fight scary monsters for the benefit of people who hate us, all for a pittance of coins, and then we die violent, relatively untimely deaths. And the only ones who mourn us are other witchers"

"Doesn't mean I want to let some bastard wizard dissect me. I like living, Phinn, no matter how many stones get tossed at me or inns that turn me out. Going out in dragon's fire or manticore venom is one thing, but I am not going to surrender and let myself be cut to pieces without a fight. And I am not going to let you either." He forced himself to his feet, leaning heavily against the iron bars. "Promise you'll fight, when the time comes, when you get the chance."

"I promise, Fye, but I don't think they'll give us the chance."

"Maybe not now, but we'll get our chance, if I have to make one myself."

Ten years later.

The rubble filled streets posed little obstacle to the orphans' scramble back to the crumbling house that kept them. The matron had no pity for younglings lacking promptness, and once the gates shut at sundown, they stayed shut, and any stragglers could miss dinner and sleep out in the cold. That being well known, the bigger children had no qualms about shoving the smaller, slower ones out of the way.

"Move, whelp!" One of the bigger boys hipchecked the smallest inmate of the orphanage, uncaring of the fact the tiny elf was several stones lighter than he and nearly went flying at his shove. Dark, matted hair was pushed away from ever frightened grey eyes, before the tiny form picked herself back up off the stones with a ragged cough and scurried on, sliding around the door just as it slammed shut.

"Cutting it close enough, aren't you?" The matron glared at the last child to return, the elfchild's eyes alternating between fixed on bruised dirty toes and peering cautiously at her from a pinched, too skinny face. "I should put you right back out again, you're nothing but a waste of space and food. Filthy non humans like you are why this place is so full anyway. You're a worthless, ungrateful brat, is what you are. If you were bigger and prettier, I could sell you to the brothel, get money enough to feed my poor hungry orphan boys."

"I'm sorry matron, I'll try to do better." The timid form in ragged clothing whispered, cowering.

"See that you do, ugly little long eared brat"

That night, as the elfchild curled like a mouse in her favorite spot, hidden behind the cabinets where no one would take her slice of stale bread or add to her bruises, a stranger in a dark cloak came to talk with the matron. They were talking quiet, so she leaned closer, peeking out from under the cabinets molding as she pricked her ears to find out what was going on. "Twenty five boys, ages nine to twelve. At even a hundred orens a head, that's cheap going, master Faethor.

"Twenty five hundred orens for one experiment? Hardly cheap, mistress Danza. But I suppose you are correct as to the difficulty of acquiring them elsewhere. So many orphanages these days seem to concern themselves with the welfare of their charges, and might care to ask why I wanted so many, and what I wished to do with them. Luckily, you are more practical."

"Gotta feed the rest of the little darlings, don't I? And bread isn't cheap these days." She faked a sniff, even as the man started counting out coins onto the table.

"I suppose. I have a very high paying retainer interested in the results of my experiments. If it goes well, I may return to take more of your 'little darlings' off your hands."

The elf child gasped, inhaling the thick dust into her always weary lungs. She coughed, breath rasping harshly, and thumped her head on the bottom of the cabinet. As she curled there hacking, a strong fingered hand wrapped around her ankle and yanked. As her head smacked against the molding again, she tried pulling away, only to find herself inexorably tugged out into the light. "Well now, what do we have here?"

"You can have that one free. Consider her make-weight, save me feeding her miserable carcass."

"Hmm…" The blond man pushed his hood back with his free hand, and considered the small elf before him. She stared back up at him, a bruise already darkening across her cheekbone. He hauled her to her feet, watching her with a coldly measuring gaze. A long finger moved the matts of her hair away from her face, studying her too-angular features, large, frightened grey eyes, and ridiculously oversized pointed ears. She wheezed, trying to pull herself from his implacable grasp, and ended her struggle coughing desperately again, her lungs burning as they always did under exertion. "I suppose I could find some use for her. As an outlier for the specimen group if nothing else."


	2. Chapter 2

One for sorrow 2

The metal doors clanged loudly, open and shut. Footsteps echoed loudly through the hall, coupled with loud scuffles and dragging sounds. Phin dragged himself out of the makeshift pile of rags and dirty straw he had been using as a bed, gazing blearily out into the corridor. The armored thugs that did the wizard's bidding were dragging in a large group of skinny, raggedly dressed boys, locking them in the cells closer to the doors. Into the cell next to Fye's they threw the smallest of the lot, barely more than a limp bundle of rags. It landed next to the bars between the cells, with only a quiet whimper to argue continued life.

Fiyero hauled himself to that side of his cage, reaching through to check on the child. The pulse was steady under the bruised and filthy skin, and he pulled back, even as the small form shivered and flinched. Frightened grey eyes regarded him through snarls of dark hair, long ears twitching slightly in apprehension.

"Easy there, little one." The blond witcher soothed, keeping his tone gentle. "What's your name?"

"Name?" came a confused murmur. "Whelp, brat, waste of space. I don't know."

"Ahh, hush, little one. It's alright then. Who brought you here, where did you and the others come from?

"Danza's orphan house. The man in the dark cloak bought them, and I was thrown in for makeweight." She levered herself into a crouch, bracing herself against the bars, thin fingers wrapped against the iron. Fiyero reached out again, tracing around the numbers branded livid and raw against her forearm.

The door banged dramatically open, Faethor striding in arrogantly, surveying the rows of caged children with an almost indulgent shade of disgust. A few more strides and he found himself between the caged witchers, careful to keep to the center of the wide aisle and out of reach of either one. "I find myself in need of another test subject, gentlemen. Merely blood samples this time, nothing so very invasive, hmm? Any volunteers?"

Phin spat at him, the thick gob of saliva splattering across the top of the mage's basilisk skin boot. "Go to hell, you fucking bastard," he swore in a voice hoarsened into a barking rasp.

"Now, now, no need to be crude. Remind me again why I shouldn't dissect you for more comparison data? After all, I only really need to keep one of you alive for ongoing studies."

"You promised. You swore you wouldn't kill him, as long as…" Fiyero dragged himself painfully up to a standing position against the bars.

"A bare minimum of cooperation is all I ask, son of my mother. For that little consideration, I allow both you and your mutant companion continued room and board in my humble establishment, without vivisecting either of you. I hardly think a touch of courtesy is unreasonable." The blond mage smiled darkly at the pale blond witcher he had once called brother. "Blood samples, today, from one of you in the lower laboratory, without undue fuss. And in return, I'll make sure the staff doesn't 'forget' to feed you today, no matter how much easier it makes dealing with you."

"I'll do it." Fiyero ground out, not looking at either of the others.

"Fye, you haven't recovered from the last set of 'tests' he put you through. I can manage…" Phin spat, still leaning wearily against the bars.

"You haven't eaten in a week, Delphinium. I'll survive this." Fiyero extended his wrists through the slot in door, allowing himself to be bound for the trip upstairs, knowing his injuries were too extensive to fight the guards successfully today anyway.

"Excellent, if you've decided then?" Faethor swept off towards the stairs without waiting for a response.

Fye allowed himself to be dragged off down the hall, staging one careful stumble against Phin's cell door, allowing the other witcher a quick brush of fingers along his cheek. "Be careful, Fye."

"Aren't I always?" he whispered in a dull tone as he was pulled away.

The torches had burned out and been replaced in steady progression by the time a pale and trembling Fiyero was returned to his cell and bowls of the murky gruel that passed for food were shoved through the slots in the bars. He looked drained, barely able to lift the bowl to his lips, giving up after a few meager sips. At the far end of the corridor, the first few boys were being unceremoniously dragged out of their cells and toward the door to the laboratories.

"I told you I could have managed. Damn it, Fye, how many samples did he take?" Phin snapped, ignoring his own bowl in favor of staring across the corridor with worry.

Fye blinked, shaking his head slightly before attempting another sip of food. "As much as he could without outright killing me, I suspect. He had those studies he drew from the others he dissected out, kept pondering over them as he bottled my blood."

Phin cursed softly, before finally gulping at his own meal with a slight grimace of distaste. "I'll never get used to how this slop tastes. Are you going to be okay?"

"Think so. He dosed me with a few vials of Swallow, before he started bleeding me. Not sure if it was to keep me alive or just something he wanted for his experiment, though."

"I'd put money on experimental purposes, Fye, given the lack of interest he's shown in your welfare so far."

Fye snorted softly, taking another small sip out of his bowl. "By his standards, he's handling us with kid gloves, Phin. I haven't entirely forgotten how he treated me before I was given to Kaer Morhen and the mages took him."

"Of all the renegade mages on the continent, we ended up in your brother's dungeon. Ten years since we figured that out, and I still can't believe it."

"I can. I walked into a trap set specifically for me, and you got over emotional and came after me. Thus leading to us spending 10 years in the hands of a sadist whose childhood idea of fun was dropping fire ants down my pants. I should have seen his involvement coming long before he showed up to gloat." He slowly finished most of his bowl, then deliberately set it down and pushed it over to the side of his cell. The large grey eyes that had been wistfully watching him eat widened at the gesture. A moment later, a small hand reached tentatively between the bars toward the food, before flinching back as the eyes narrowed suspiciously, fixed on him. "I'm not going to bite, little magpie. Go on. Eat something before you waste away to nothing."

She warily eyed him a moment more before snatching at the bowl, wolfing frantically at the dregs of watery gruel. When she had licked the last of it clean with the fervor of the starving, she reluctantly set the bowl down before darting back to her own pile of straw, where she could watch the strange food sharing adult from safely out of reach. He didn't move from his half reclined position against the wall, and she let herself succumb to sleep, more content than she could ever remember being.

"You're as likely to waste away to nothing as she is, Fye," Phin remonstrated quietly from across the corridor, shaking his head. "Why you'd go and waste food like that, as rarely as it's handed out, I'll never understand."

"Oh, I don't know. Why did you go off and come looking for me, when it would have been more practical to cut your losses and go home for the winter?" was the quiet reply. Fye half smiled at the disconcerted look on the other witcher's face, glancing over to check on the sleeping elf. "Altruism isn't always a bad thing, Phin. Sometimes, I need to prove to myself I'm more human than monster."

"You think entirely too much, Fye. You're starting to sound like Geralt." Phin finished off the last of his own gruel before retreating to his bed.

"You say that like it's a bad thing."

"My point exactly."


	3. Chapter 3

One for sorrow 3

The screaming started a few hours later, echoing down through the stone hallways and corridors from the laboratories. Its abrupt end was swiftly followed by the return of the guards, dragging another pair of terrified boys towards the door. After the fifth or sixth set of children had vanished into the laboratories, Faethor himself strode back through the corridor, temper evident in his every step.

"Experiments not going well, mage?" Phin taunted. The mage tilted his head slightly, considering the witcher with eyes like chips of ice.

"I've run low on certain supplies. I believe it's your turn to provide them. You will come along with as little fuss as my brother did, or I will ignore the risks of taking more from him so soon." His gaze flicked carelessly over to Fiyero, still too pale and quiet in the corner of his cage. "I have little patience for your inanities today. Decide."

Delphinium followed his look, and bit back the insulting remark that had leapt to his lips. "At your command, then," he grumbled, extending his wrists. A ghost of a smile drifted over the mage's face, though it went nowhere near the icy blue of his eyes. He flicked a hand, and the ever-present guards clicked manacles over the witcher's bony wrists before unlocking the cage. A half step forward, and a mace clonked across the back of his skull, an unnerving recall to the manner in which he had been originally captured.

When he was slapped awake, he was hanging by his wrists in the upper laboratory, stripped and dangling above a tiled floor with a drain in the center, his head throbbing. When his eyes managed to adjust to the bright sunlight through the windows and focus, Faethor was holding an uncorked bottle of dark blue liquid in front of his face. "Drink," was the abrupt order, followed by an annoyed look as the witcher turned his head away from the bottle at his lips. A long fingered hand forced his head still, pinching his nostrils shut until he gasped for breath, at which point the potion was unceremoniously dumped down his throat.

He coughed, shaking his head as the effects of the swallow elixir kicked in. His body had barely steadied back when a second dose was added, and a third, as fast as he could be forced to swallow. The mage turned, studying a row of elixirs on a shelf, and Phin straightened, feeling better than he had in years. He could feel the throbbing at the back of his skull recede, and he tensed himself, watching the mage for any opportunity.

"Before you start getting any clever ideas, witcher, do remember that the wards back in the holding cells are keyed to me, and fail safe if I die. Anyone left back in there, like perhaps that mutated brother of mine you got yourself captured for, would die, horribly and painfully." At that pointed reminder, Phin growled softly, but forced himself to relax. Even his desperate desire to regain his freedom was not worth being the cause of Fiyero's death. "Now drink this, like a good dog." A pale red potion was held to his lips, and Phin didn't fight it this time, or the second dose of Tawny owl offered him. A forth vial of Swallow was offered, and he hesitated, trying to calculate how much more he could handle before the toxicity overcame his tolerance. It and a darker blue vial were swiftly administered despite his halfhearted resistance, as his heartbeat raced and his breathing harshened, his stomach quivering as the potions were absorbed. Another vial, and he nearly retched, the bite of the chains around his wrists above his head the only thing keeping him upright.

"So the rumors that even your kind has a limit to your chemical tolerance are true. Fascinating." Those long fingers slid under his chin, forcing him to look up so the mage could check the reactions of his pupils to a conjured magelight. "Utterly fascinating. I should have tested this facet of witcher physiology years ago. Pity I don't have more time to pursue it right now." The slide of fingers under his jaw became something almost sickeningly like a caress, before Faethor turned, reaching for the small, sharp knives arranged on a silver tray at his side.

A flick of a slender, silk sleeved wrist, and a vein opened along his forearm arm. A small spell whispered and blood began collecting into the first of the row of crystal flasks. "I still have a few more flasks of his blood, enough to start another experiment while I monitor the collection of yours. Would you care to watch me work? See what noble effort your little sacrifice aids?"

"Go fuck yourself," Phin spat, feeling himself bleeding out as the flasks slowly began to fill. Somehow this was worse than the other tortures the mage had put them through, than the studies of their reflexes and endurance and pain tolerance. Perhaps it was that this time the mage lingered, just out of reach, where he could see the way ice blue eyes watched him as he slowly bled away his life. Perhaps it was the way those long, almost delicate fingers, so like Fiyero's, kept brushing over his skin, checking the strength of his pulse. The fact that he had been stripped of even his wolf's head medallion for this did not help. The lack of the metal chain he had worn for the last forty years against his skin brought home the fact of his absolute lack of even the illusion of defense, and he did not like it, or how amused Faethor seemed at his discomfort.

"And I was hoping we could manage a moment of civility. Pity." The mage waved one of the guards over from the door. "Fetch me numbers 13, 19, and 26, I suppose." The guard vanished back towards the cells, returning in the time it took for another flask to fill with two more boys and the tiny elf child.

In short order, they were strapped down to the polished tables at the edge of the room, arms bared to the shoulder. Faethor selected a flask from a different shelf, carefully mixing in a few odd powders and shimmering drops of liquid before filling a large bored needle and injecting an exposed vein on the first child. The tracery of veins spread black as the toxic blood spread through an unprepared system, and the screaming echoed across the room. Within minutes, the screaming turned to a choking gurgle, and then stopped entirely, as the black streaks across his face and chest spread.  
"Instant rejection. The last pair lasted a bit longer. How disappointing."

He filled another needle from the same flask, carefully tapping air bubbles out of it before administering a dose to the boy closer to Phin's corner of the room, the one with 19 branded into his forearm. It took longer for the screaming to stop this time, and Phin found himself flinching back with every agonized sound, his stomach churning. The tiny elf that Fye had taken pity on was sniffling miserably, fighting at the leather straps binding wrist to table. Phin found himself wondering about the little brat as the screaming stopped and Faethor began preparing another flask and needle. How had an elf that little ended up at a human orphanage anyway? No elf he'd ever met would have allowed such a thing, too concerned with the continuance of their race. They never had many children, so even if his parents had perished, another should have gladly taken him in. He was decidedly too small and skinny for his apparent age, going by the level of coherence Fye had gotten out of him last night.

Faethor slid the steel of the needle into a barely visible vein, and Phin looked away. It was insanity, this mage's obsession with witchers. The secrets to the formulas that might create witchers out of these boys were locked away under Kaer Morhen, and even those came with a disturbingly high rate of failure. It was a waste, throwing away young lives to cater to his delusions. And the elf was so very young, barely half the age of the older boys. The screaming began, high and frightened and agonized.

And it went on, unceasing. He risked a glance back after what seemed like an eternity, although the steady throb of his pulse told him otherwise. The web of veins past the injection had darkened, but nowhere near the livid black of the previous two. Even as he watched, it began to lighten, and the agonized quality of the screams lessened. Faethor brushed his long fingers along the child's throat, and then smirked. "Unexpected." He unhurriedly reached for another flask; this time from the row Phinn's blood was filling. A different mix of catalysts was stirred in, and a second injection was pushed into her vein. The darkness spread briefly, then faded again. The mage continued his experiment, the screams never quite ending. They seemed to echo across the room and through the witcher's aching head, mixing with the throb of his bleeding arm and the drip of the filling flasks, as everything hazed and a different darkness over took him.


End file.
